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<DIV>Dear Dr. Muhammad-Reza Fakhr-Rohani,</DIV>
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<DIV>sorry for the late reply.</DIV>
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<DIV>> Indeed there are such words in Mazandarani. For example, "y3
s3sk3 nun" vs. "y3 Rade nun", both of which mean "some piece of bread".[1]
In the same fashion as you noted, there is a change of meaning. </DIV>
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<DIV>Could you please explain which the change of meaning is? I am so interested
in this sort of things...</DIV>
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<DIV>>But, have you checked some English dictionaries for a
> list of such 'measure' words in English? </DIV>
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<DIV>No, actually I didn't yet. But I don't know if English classifiers are
completely comparable to Chinese ones. From all the examples I have
read from the precious suggestions the collegues lexicographers have provided so
far, I understand that Chinese, besides these "group" classifiers, has also
something different. In fact, all the classifiers I have seen here are
collective; in Chinese there are also - how can I explain it? - "unit
classifiers", classifiers which identify a specific class of things and can be
also used with just one of those things. So to say "one cat" (not a group of
cats, or a strange type of cats), I say <EM>yi1 zhi1 mao1</EM>; for "one horse",
I say <EM>yi1 pi3 ma3</EM>, with <EM>zhi1</EM> classifier for animals and
<EM>pi3</EM> classifier for horses, donkeys, mules (probably also camels and
dromedaries), etc. </DIV>
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<DIV>> By the way, are you aware of any dictionary of such words, with
one side in English? And, do you know of any scheme or list of procedures
for collecting such words?</DIV>
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<DIV>I think there are some Chinese-English dictionaries for Chinese classifiers
(for instance <EM>the Dictionary of Chinese <B>Classifiers</B>.</EM>
Torrance, CA: Heian International Publishing, Incorporated, 1989); in Chinese
there are many of them, because they are so important. In fact, nearly every
word has its own classifier! But I don't know exactly how the lexicographers of
such dictionaries collect them, if they have some special procedure to follow...
Anyway I am sure it is very hard because very often nouns can also serve as
classifiers!</DIV>
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<DIV>> I appreciate your prompn reply and hope to hear from you soon.</DIV>
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<DIV>Sincerely,</DIV>
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<DIV>Tommaso</DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT><FONT size=2></FONT><FONT size=2></FONT><FONT
size=2></FONT><FONT size=2></FONT><FONT size=2></FONT><BR><BR><B><I>Tommaso
Pellin <tommaso.pellin@unive.it></I></B> wrote:</DIV>
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<BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid"><TT>Dear
Muhammad-Reza Fakhr-Rohani,<BR><BR>A measure word, at least in Mandarin
Chinese, is in fact something like "kilo", "meter", and similar measurement
units. But while in such languages as English, apart from the cases in which
"kilo" or "meter" or else is used, usually nouns do not need any measurement
unit (in English we say "a person", two tables, three knives"), in Mandarin
Chinese they do (so we have yi1 ge ren2 "one unit of people", liang3 zhang1
zhuo1zi "two units of tables" and san1 ba3 dao1 "three units of knives").
The thing which renders learning them even harder is that there exist many
measure words, according to a number of classes of words. So we have the
ample and<BR>> thin things which use the measure word "zhang1" (like for
the tables, or leaves of paper, or tickets, or photographs), the handled
things which use "ba3" (as the knives, the forks, the s poons), and so on.
Every measure word has its own meaning so to use one instead of another
changes radically the meaning of a syntagm (for instance, yi1 zhi1 hua1
means "one flower", because it is used the measure word "zhi1", which is for
thin and round-sectioned things like the stalk of the flower, but yi1 ba3
hua1 means "a bunch of flowers" because "ba3" which is roughly "handful" is
used).<BR><BR>I hope my explanation is clear, and invite the collegues to
correct it.<BR><BR>Is there anything similar in
Mazandarani?<BR><BR>Thanks<BR><BR>Tommaso<BR><BR><BR>> Dear Prof. Tommaso
Pellin,<BR>> Thanks for your interesting message. What do you
precisely mean by<BR>> 'measure words'? Do you mean such words as 'kilo',
'meter', and so on?<BR>> If so, I can help you with some such words from
Mazandarani, a<BR>> less-studied Iranian language. Will it help
you? And, do you think the<BR>> size of such words will be
enough for devoting a dictionary to them?<BR>> Write me
soon.<BR>> Sincerely,<BR>> Dr. Muhammad-Reza Fakhr-Rohani<BR>>
dr_fakhr_rohani@yahoo.com<BR>> <BR>> Tommaso Pellin
<tommaso.pellin@unive.it> wrote:<BR>> Dear lexicographers,<BR>>
<BR>> is there anyone who has some experience in Chinese measure words or
in<BR>> measure words in any other kind of language? Could you give me
some advice<BR>> about preparing a dictionary of measure words? Could you
suggest some good<BR>> dictionary to take as an example (I am going to
write a Chinese-Italian<BR>> dictionary of measure words)?<BR>>
<BR>> Thank you<BR>> <BR>> Tommaso Pellin</TT>
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